Refusing to Kill or be Killed

Payday, a network of men, co-ordinate men’s participation in the Global Women’s Strike, and campaigning internationally in support of refuseniks and conscientious objectors.

Refusing to kill or be killed, an initiative of Payday working with the Global Women’s Strike, supporting women and men around the world who refuse to be killers, rapists and torturers.  By Refusing to Kill we also mean refusing to be killed or for our loved ones to be killed. 

The Nüremberg Tribunals after WWII  established the duty of every soldier, and of all of us, to refuse to carry out illegal and immoral orders – we don’t intend to be passive or silenced.

The international movement we are part of includes:

  • Women and men from the South escaping military conscription and seeking asylum in the North.

  • US soldiers “deserting” and seeking asylum in Canada.

  • US activists against the ‘poverty draft’ which targets people of colour and immigrants, often as an alternative to jail, or with a promise of further education or the right to residence and nationality.

  • Opt Out: campaigning against US schools giving students’ home address and phone to military recruiters.

  • Israel’s 500 high school students who gave notice of their refusal to serve “the occupation and the war crimes committed by the Israeli forces,” giving new impetus to the Israeli refusenik movement.

  • Vietnam veterans who publicized that more vets committed suicide after the war than the 58,000 US military killed.

  • Disabled veterans and their families insisting on recognition and compensation for war-induced physical and mental illnesses.

  • Soldiers working with the community, as in Venezuela where they are involved in food distribution, etc., and defending the revolution from US or other invasion.

  • Refusers and whistleblowers who expose the murderous policies of State institutions and corporations  (see Philippines p.6).

Mumia Abu-Jamal –News from Death Row
 Mumia’s appeal against his racist conviction now before the appeal court in Pennsylvania. Forthcoming publications:
Jailhouse Lawyers – prisoners who represent prisoners.
Mumia’s case for a new trial by his lawyer Rober Bryan

Gulf War Syndrome – Refusing To Be Disabled

There is no such a thing as an unwounded soldier. While the US claimed 760 casualties in the 1991 Gulf War, by 2002 another 8,300 had died and 168,000 had been disabled by the effects of experimental vaccines, depleted uranium (DU), oil well fires, etc., and thousands of their children were born with disabilities.  UK veterans suffered similarly and demanded recognition and compensation for “Gulf War Syndrome”. 

In May 2004, Scottish veteran Alex Izett’s hunger strike (supported by Payday) won the Independent Inquiry on Gulf War Illnesses in London, which ackowledged that Gulf War Syndrome exists.  However, the proposed “compensation” for 6,000 UK veterans and their families was an insult – £500 on average. 

This movement for reparations is now widening to other wars. Two US states now provide DU screening for soldiers returning from Iraq. The Italian Senate is investigating the effects of DU on Italian soldiers and, for the first time, on civilians exposed during military exercises in Italy itself.  The tragedy of possibly millions of similarly affected women, children and men in Iraq, former Yugoslavia, Somalia, and Afghanistan,  is now on our agenda.

Mehmet Tarhan – Proud to say NO

Turkey is one of 100 countries that impose conscription and among the 70 which does not recognise the right to conscientious objection.

Mehmet Tarhan, a gay Kurdish anarchist, has been sentenced to four years in prison by a Turkish Military Court for refusing to serve. He is a total conscientious objector – against all wars and any alternative to military service. He is now appealing.

The Turkish military deem homosexuality an “illness”. Men who apply for exemption on grounds of homosexuality must submit to an anal examination – equivalent of the notorious “virginity test” the Turkish police and army use to rape Kurdish women in particular.

Mehmet refuses to be considered “ill”. He also refuses the “equality” that would make him kill for the army:

“If they grant gays the ‘right’ to do military service, I won’t tell gay people to do their military service. They shouldn’t. Neither should heterosexuals.”

Mehmet’s mother and sister – Hatice and Emine – have supported him tirelessly with the Solidarity with Mehmet Tarhan Initiative. Mehmet has been on hunger strike a number of times, in protest against being tortured in prison. He won the right to his own cell, to his own tv and to make himself tea. His torturers are being prosecuted. 

On 9 December 2005, there was an International Day of Action in his support in 23 cities in 14 countries. Payday and Wages Due Lesbians held pickets in Lon don, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Venice, Italy.

Now refuseniks are supporting Mehmet, notably, ex-US gay Marine Stephen Funk who was jailed for one year for refusing to go to Iraq, Hagai Matar, one the Israeli Five who have refused to serve in the occupied territories, and Mirjam Hadar, mother of another refusenik, who is in touch with Hatice Tarhan.

Mehmet’s refusal has inspired a movement challenging military domination in Turkey and elsewhere. Whilst warmongers support each other in their wars against Iraq, Palestine, Kurdistan...the growing global movement for conscientious objection is determined to starve them of manpower to wage war.

Journal 2006

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